Makumazaan? Waterbobbejan? South African Trucker has a “Bigfoot” Encounter

“As I put it in gear, something huge slams into the side of my vehicle, and the only glimpse I catch is that of something out of nightmares.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word cryptid as “An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.” For the following witnesses to living cryptids, there is no dispute. In this series of National Cryptid Society’s case files, you will read what the witnesses have experienced in their own words.

Keep an open mind when reading these accounts, and also remember one’s perception and memory of an event can be influenced by the emotions felt at the time of the occurrence. The contributors to this series of articles are doing the best they can to recount what are in some cases very shocking and traumatic experiences.

If you have a personal cryptid sighting story you would like to tell us, our contact information is at the bottom of this article.

NCS Case File #50: South African Trucker has a “Bigfoot” Encounter

“As a truck driver, you see some weird things. For example, people who aren’t really there. My coworkers always told me about the “road people” along certain of our company’s routes. Never believed them though.

So one morning at around 2am, nature calls and I stop to answer. As I’m zipping up, I hear a rustle in the grass. Thinking it might be my imagination, I get back in my vehicle. As I put it in gear, something huge slams into the side of my vehicle, and the only glimpse I catch is that of something out of nightmares.

It’s huge. The side windows of my truck are about 2.2 meters (about 7 feet) off the ground, and this thing’s head and shoulders were well above my truck’s sill. All I saw was black body and white eyes…”

NCS Notes:

I’ve had a terrible time finding information on bigfoot-like creatures from South Africa. The best I was able to do was find a scant bit of information about the Makumazaan otherwise known as the “Waterbobbejan” or “water Baboon”; “This ape-like object from hell would lie sleeping on the muddy bottom of pools, only to come out at night, looking for those that were still roaming around the rivers after dark.”[i]

In 1999, International Explorer Magazine claimed that native South African Roland Jaffe was the world’s preeminent expert on this subject of the Waterbobbejan,[ii] but for the life of me I can’t find any more information about Jaffe.

As of 9/16/2017, I will keep updating this article with any more bits of information and links that I can collect or that the National Cryptid Society can dig up. If you have any additional information on a Bigfoot-like cryptid in South Africa, please leave some of your internet wisdom in the comments below.

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